Oregon Trout Unlimited Scores a Major Victory

Oregon Trout Unlimited has secured a major legislative priority for the 2009. Senate Bill 571 will make “bucket biology” aka “jackassery” a Class C Felony and convicted bucket biologists will lose their fishing privileges for five years.–KM

From the desk of Tom Wolf:

Oregon TU members-

SB 571A has just passed unanimously in the Oregon House-after already passing unanimously in the Senate . So now all it is waiting for is the Governor’s signature.

Passing a bill like SB 571A-which would stiffen penalties for illegally introducing non-native fish in Oregon waters and allowing the ODFW Commission to recover restitution costs, has been a major goal of the Oregon Council for over 12 years.

This bill should help deal with the problem we have in Oregon(and other states) to deal with the “bucket biology” attempts of people to put non-native fish in our waters. The most famous case is Diamond Lake , where the introduction of tui chub, has cost the state millions of dollars to fix. There have been many other cases such as Crane Prairie, Davis Lake and many others.

Thanks to all the TU members who helped, the Oregon Conservation Network for their support ,and the leadership of many legislators such as Senator Dingfelder, Senator Prozanski, Rep. Clem and others.